Jam-ON!

Wow, what a fun weekend. I can already tell this will be a lengthy post...consider yourself warned. Friday, after my 1:00 class, I met Alex in La Plaza de Anaya (right outside my building). Mr. Independent refused to be picked up from the train station, but still managed to find his way to the University. I've got to hand it to him though since this is about a 25-30 minute walk. Impressive. He almost ruined the entire trip within the first five minutes, however, when he proceeded to tell me that not only had he already explored the "whole" city, he had also eaten lunch. Unfortunately for Alex, lunch and exploring was already the plan for the day. Alex would now watch me enjoy el menu del dia at Cafe Quijote. It only took being handed twelve of these cafe fliers everyday since I arrived in Salamanca to finally convince me to go. El menu del dia is the greatest aspect of Spanish culture. You may ask, "Sarah, I thought you said SIESTA was the greatest aspect of Spanish culture." Allow me to explain: Menu del dia IS siesta, but at a restaurant. It includes wine, water, bread, 2 huge courses, and dessert for about 10-13 euros. Sweet deal. At Quijote, I enjoyed tortellini con jamon (ham), lomo (pork), papas fritas (french fries), bread, white wine, water, and helado (ice cream). Yikes, I'm gross. Next, I showed Alex my daily stomping grounds and walked over by El Rio Tormes as well. We headed back toward my apartment so Alex could drop off his things at Hostal Reise (right on my street!) and siesta. We met up again for dinner around 8:30. It took us more than 20 minutes to find a place literally 2 blocks from my apartment (on a street called Pollo Martin I might add...that's Chicken Martin. Ha.) We asked about 5 different people, each sending us in a different direction (also very likely we just didn't understand what they said). Once we finally found Pollo Martin, we realized that the restaurant (called Tobogan) had 3 different entrances right next to each other. Well great, which one do we go to!? "Tobogan cerveceria," "Tobogan," or "Tobogan Restaurante." Thankfully we only looked like foreign idiots for a few minutes before the host came outside one of the entrances to let us in. Dinner was delicious, but bizarre. At almost 9pm Alex and I were literally the only people in the restaurant (and I was told to make reservations at this place!) Really, Spain? Ordering was an adventure because even with Alex and I pooling our Spanish knowledge together, we still only knew what less than half the menu was. I ended up with a typical weird Spanish salad (any random mixture of ingredients with lettuce and oil) and Alex got steak. I'd also like to point out that my coke light cost more than his beer. This is also the country where coffee is less than juice. Just saying. We learned that even if you say you are finished and the waiter (whom, in this case, Alex decided to name Rafael) has cleared everything from the table, they won't bring you your check until you ask for it.

Saturday morning, Allison, Andrea, Alex, Ally, Angela, (whoa lots of A's), Kelsey, Hannah, Will, and I headed to Avila (about an hour and a half bus ride from Sal) for the day. Avila, like many of the old cities in Spain, is enclosed by a huge stone wall from the Roman rule. Today, much of the modern city has been forced outside of the wall. In some places, we were able to walk around on top of the wall, which gave us a great view of the city. Next, we stopped for "yemas." Avila is famous for these round lumps of egg yokes and sugar. Trust me, they sound even better than they actually are. Yemas=very lame-as. But we really couldn't leave without trying them. Thankfully, the bakery had cafe con leche and plenty of other pastries to cleanse our pallets. We also visited El Convento de Santa Teresa de Jesus (the original yemas-maker) and La Catedral. Also imperative on our to-do list before leaving Avila was seeing EL DEDO. "El dedo" is "the finger" of Santa Teresa de Jesus. I almost threw up when I saw it, but it was well worth it the long, stressful search. El dedo was even complete with some emerald bling. Only now could we leave Avila. Returning to Salamanca, several of us enjoyed a delicious Mexican meal, complete with countless racial slurs about how all Spanish speakers are in fact Mexican. We headed back to our respective houses to shower and met back at Jacko's, our new favorite Michael Jackson-themed bar. After Jacko's we headed to Camelot for dancing! Que guay!

Sunday checkout for the hostel was at 12, so I met Alex outside soon after that. We walked to Café Novelty on La Plaza Mayor for croissants and café con leche (my drug of choice). Although almost everything is closed on Sundays in Spain, most of the shops in the old part of the city were still open on account of its tourist appeal. If I were to have any job in this country, I would undoubtedly be a shopkeeper. There’s really no denying the extremely favorable working hours: open store around 10, close at 1:45 for siesta, open again 5ish, close around 8. This is almost laughable when compared to the American workday. ANYWHO, (me and my tangents) I was eager to use Alex as an opportunity to see the cathedrals here. Apparently, it’s normal for a city/town to have just one cathedral, but in Salamanca, we have two (vieja y nueva=old and new). I guess that means that we’re a pretty big deal. The “nueva” cathedral, however, really isn’t that nueva, as it was built at the end of the 15th century. Minor details. We enjoyed a view of the city from pathways on the roofs. Next, we walked on the other side of Calle Toro (main road from my apartment to La Plaza Mayor) to a part of Salamanca I hadn’t seen yet. We passed by La Plaza de Cristobal Colon and looked inside the Palacio. It’s exciting to find new places in such a small city. Menu del dia time. We chose a really cool place on Calle Liberos, which I definitely need to go back to sometime. Alex got some potato thing (really yummy, trust me) and I had lentejas (lentils) to start. Both of us also had wine, water, bread, and rotisserie chicken and French fries. Oh and of course dessert. I got arroz con leche (much like tapioca pudding) and Alex got flan. For such a smart boy he really made the foolish decision. One look at the lumpy, jiggly thing and he said, “I feel like I’m eating an 80-year-old woman’s thigh.” No doubt one of the more disgusting descriptions I’ve ever heard in my life. Even so, this didn’t keep him from finishing every bite. What a drama queen. After lunch, we walked to Casa de las Conchas (House of the Shells) as it’s very famous here in Salamanca. I wish I could tell you why, but I still don’t know myself since the main exhibition had closed earlier that day. More walking. Of course I couldn’t let Alex leave without giving him his first churros con chocolate experience, and at no other place than Valor. Although we could barely cram in 2 churros each, culturing him was worth the stomachache (I’m getting pretty used to these anyways). After churros, we stopped off at the apartment to grab his things and made our way to the train station.
Upon my return home, however, I was confronted by an upset and confused Madre Ascencion. “Porque no ha visitado tu novio? Porque no trajiste el a la casa para la cena?” (Why hasn’t your boyfriend visited? Why didn’t you bring him to the house for dinner?”) Please keep in mind that Allison and I are not allowed to have boys over at the house, except those in our JMU program. (Madre, what are you talking about??) Friday, Saturday, and Sunday she had asked me if I would be eating at the house and I said no (because I’d be with Alex). Little did I realize that she was really asking if BOTH of us would be eating at the house. She was inviting him too. I tried my best to apologize and explain that I was confused, but I think I really hurt her feelings. She said she didn’t understand why I wouldn’t bring him, that students had done that in the past. Then I became upset too because I would have loved for Alex to see where I live and to experience one of our epic siesta lunches. AGH STUPID LANGUAGE BARRIER! I felt so bad, I showed her all my pictures from this weekend and I think things are better now.

Tonight, we are going out to tapas for dinner with our JMU group, which can only mean one thing: even MORE food at siesta. I think our madre feels compelled that if she is not the one feeding us, we might starve or something. We had mixed paella (our overflowing bowls might as well have been pig troughs), bread, salad, pork filets, and fruit. I almost threw up at the table. I don’t know how much longer I can continue eating the equivalent of a Thanksgiving meal everyday before ending up on some Fat Camp Reality TV Show. Lucia (Ascencion’s granddaughter) ate with us today. She’s 4 and is seriously one of the most adorable little girls I’ve ever seen. It’s so entertaining to hear her speaking in a little sassy Spanish voice. She is learning colors and numbers in English and enjoys showing off to us foreign girls. More Later, got to run get a coke light before Spanish Civ. so I won’t take my siesta in class!